The family of Jacob Miller and Maria Bechler has been extensively
researched and documented while still in Europe by Neil Ann Stuckey
Levine. This family
left France and came to the United States in the early 1800's.
Some of the family's children were born in France, and some were born
in Pennsylvania and Ohio. While most of the
children can be easily traced, Anna Miller, who was born in about 1821,
is more elusive. Although it was known by researchers that a
child of Jacob and Maria named Anna did exist, very little
solid information on her other than a married surname of Smith and a
place of
residence in 1873 were known. This Anna had not been connected to
a
rumor that that the daughter of Jacob Miller had "run off with a train
man". Thus, for many years Anna Miller, the wife of John Souder,
has been disconnected form Anna Miller, the daughter of Jacob and Marie
Miller. The current
genealogical work by Cara Steiner, The
Search for Anna: Using Frayed and
Severed Threads to Reweave the Tapestry of a Family, published
in Mennonite Family History, Volume XXVIII, Number 3, July 2009, Pages
107-127, describes the merger of these two Annas and provides
additional information on the families of Anna's children.
Anna Miller, the subject of the article, is still hard to track and
resolve. Her birth place and date is not firmly
fixed. Her first marriage to John Souder, which took place at
about age 16, has never been documented. Her subsequent marriage
to Christian Riegsecker, was frought with pain and divorce. Her
marriage to Adam Smith is known only from unrelated court
documents. Similarly, Anna may have had other partners or
spouses, and it is uncertain who the father of her last child, Emma
Smith, really was. Additionally, after 1874, Anna, who was living
in Kosciusko County, Indiana, simply
disappears. Whether she dies, moves away, or remarries is unknown
to the authors.
Fortunately, Anna's children led more stable lives. They
can be found and tracked. They can be documented. They can be
re-associated with each other. The current work proves that even
when families are torn apart they can some times be reassembled.
Likewise, by consolidating the two Annas, the family of Jacob Miller
and Maria Bechler can now be given
a measure of closure. While there are still many more questions
remaining to be answered about all of the people involved, Anna Miller,
the wife of John Souder, Christian Riegsecker and Adam Smith, has
finally been given a parental link.
For additional genealogic information on the families of Jacob and
Maria Miller, and more particularly on the family of Anna Miller Souder
Riegsecker Smith, see the
Miller Family File
(PDF, Adobe Acrobat Reader required) Approximately 200 pages.
John Souder & Anna Miller Family
File (PDF) Extracted from the file above for easier
use. 113 pages.
Miller Family Data (PDF)
Presented in a different fashion. 19 pages.
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